1. Field
The present disclosure relates to content management and documentation systems. Specifically, the present disclosure provides a system and method of information encapsulation as a means for creating documentation in a variety of deliverable formats from one information source.
2. Description of the Related Art
Technical writers are required to prepare documentation of software and computer hardware in multiple deliverable formats. These deliverable formats generally range from web-accessible pages to printed and bound manuals with a host of formats in between. Each deliverable format has stylistic issues and limitations in general that must be considered during preparation. For example, webpages lack the text formatting and placement options available to printed manuals; however, webpages allow individual user customization to meet a particular reader's needs through supplied Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Additionally, webpages can be combined with a search engine to provide a more thorough search of the documentation than is possible with printed manuals. On the other hand, printed manuals provide the technical writer with better control over the overall presentation of the information, i.e., there are no font or color inconsistencies as is prevalent in web-based documentation. However, whereas webpages can be thoroughly searched, printed manuals provide only a Table of Contents and an index to assist a reader in finding an answer to a question.
The difference in search implementation between webpages and printed manuals, alone, require substantial changes in the way each document is created by the writer. Often, each document type will need to be rewritten nearly from scratch, thus severely increasing the time and/or manpower required to produce the necessary documentation. Further, having different writers preparing each individual document format quickly leads to inconsistencies in style, tone and even readability, collectively termed herein as writing style, between the various formats.
Various prior art techniques have been employed to try to prevent writing style issues from occurring within a set of documentation. One such technique that has gained widespread acceptance is the technique of Information Mapping. Information Mapping replaces paragraphs with so-called information blocks made up of one or more sentences, which clearly relate to a specific and limited topic. These information blocks may then be mapped, or linked, in a variety of ways to produce documents that meet a range of presentation needs. Additionally, the structure of each information block is compact and rather rigidly defined, thus discouraging non-essential stylistic language which may cause readability issues when producing documents of varying presentation requirements. While this technique greatly reduces writing style differences between documentation formats, it still requires that each document type be written separately; however, some time savings is achievable since much of the information written in this manner may be imported into each of the various deliverable formats.
Therefore, the industry is in need of techniques for writing documentation once and deploying it in multiple deliverable formats in an automated or nearly automated process, thus eliminating a significant amount of workload associated with producing multiple deliverable formats individually.